But the rest of the United Kingdom may be looking to those steeples in the coming days if voters elect the first hung parliament since February 1974.

Gordon Brown is courting the Democratic Unionist party by pledging to uphold the block grant to Northern Ireland. In a letter to the DUP leader Peter Robinson, the prime minister wrote:

I continue to recognise the unique problems that arose as a direct consequence of the years of the Troubles. It is essential that the recently established political recovery is not put at risk.

The DUP will hope that the letter will boost its support - at the expense of the Conservative/Ulster Unionist alliance - after David Cameron appeared to question the level of funding to Northern Ireland. He has since qualified his remarks to say that Northern Ireland would be treated fairly.

The DUP, which had nine MPs in the last parliament, could take centre stage on Friday. If David Cameron falls short of an overall majority, he would hope to reach an informal understanding with the DUP.

But Robinson is said to be furious with Cameron for mocking his family when he travelled to Northern Ireland on Tuesday. In a speech in Strangford Cameron stood in front of the UUP-Tory candidates and said:

There is a great family of candidates standing behind me but there will be nothing swish about the Conservative and Unionist family in Northern Ireland.

That was a direct swipe at the DUP leader, whose family was lampooned as the "Swish Family Robinson". Robinson's wife Iris resigned as MP for Strangford after it emerged that she had an affair with a young man after procuring a loan for him from business friends.

Cameron hopes to net two crucial votes of his own from his alliance with the UUP. Unionists have high hopes of capturing Fermanagh and South Tyrone, held in the last parliament by Sinn Fein, where the vote is split almost 50-50 between nationalists and unionists.

Rodney Connor is standing as an independent unionist candidate, backed by the UUP and the Democratic Unionist party. Connor would take the Tory whip but would vote as he sees fit on Northern Ireland matters.

Sinn Fein's Michelle Gildernew faces a tough battle, because the nationalist vote will be split after the SDLP decided to field the popular former UTV political correspondent Ferghal McKinney.

The Tories hope Sir Reg Empey, the UUP leader, will capture South Antrim from the DUP. But an opinion poll in the Belfast Telegraph showed that UUP support has declined since the last general election.

Here are two other ways in which Northern Ireland's 18 MPs will count:

• Sinn Fein will follow the republican tradition and not take its seats. If it holds on to its five seats, the next parliament becomes a 645-, rather than a 650-seat chamber. This means the next prime minister would need 323 seats to secure a majority rather than 326. That could count in a tight election.

• The other nationalist party, the SDLP, would provide crucial help for Labour. The three SDLP MPs in the last parliament followed their party's tradition and took the Labour whip.